sincere | Retail outrage! The small business life

Reading an article on how you can easily get 75% discounts on eyeglasses if you buy online instead of buying from the optometrist's. Someone points out that they'll never be able to do it because they need to try on and see glasses before picking one that looks good on them, and another person says, "So when you go to the optometrist to get your prescription, shop around a little, try on some pairs, and find one you like. Then note what brand and take a picture and find it online!"

Someone says,

As a retailer in a totally different industry, I cringe when I see "try it in the store then buy online". In most industries retailers have to pay for their displays, they pay for the electricity to light the shop and make the climate comfortable, they pay employees to keep it clean and answer your questions. Don't take those things for free from the retailer then buy elsewhere -- that's basically stealing.

This is the stupidest argument I've ever seen, ever, both in the context of eyeglasses and out of it. It supposes that if I leave the store immediately, they won't have to pay for those things. I guess whenever someone isn't in the store, they shut off all the lights, turn off the climate control, and send all the employees home.

Suck it up, bitch. That is overhead that you have to forfeit in order to run a business. It isn't like you put out a massage table and gave me a massage while I waited to see the eye doctor, and then I walked out before my appointment came up. The lights being on is just something you're going to have to accept as a loss. That money is gone forever, whether or not I buy something from your store. I am not responsible for that expenditure.

I'm stealing light. dslkfjslfj. That light is on even if I never walk in.

God, what a moron.

Besides which, if you're crying because stores selling eyeglasses aren't getting the sales, maybe a 1000% markup is a little much?

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...Yeah, that's a horrible argument.

*eagerly awaits the glasses I ordered online last week*

Envy envy, I wish I had the money to buy new glasses. XD

lmao I only do because of the CHEAP INTERNET PRICES. $17 including shipping. YEAH.

And it's necessary at this point because the left lens falls out of my current ones at least once a day now.

ahahahahaha XDDD Oh god, that is the stupidest argument I have ever heard.

I'm actually wearing a pair of glasses I got online and only went into Lens Crafters to get them adjusted for free. The easiest way to get frames you like is to measure them. It worked for me and got frames that fit perfectly. Plus, they were like $30 when I normally pay about $150 or even a bit more for mine in Lens Crafters. They need to stop overcharging and take a look at exactly why these things are so popular lately.

Yeah, I paid something like $300 the last time I went slkfjslfj. It's not cool, especially if you can get the same thing online for a third, a fourth of the price. Gross. And not sustainable.

I hate that sort of thing. If you are competing with online retailers, you need to give me a reason to want to buy from your store. Try earning the money you're spending on those things and your employees by providing personal service!

OH BOY shiny new glasses!

*goes to look*
WHY ARE THERE SO MAAANNNYYYY D:

Geeze, and here I thought it was going to be a valid argument. Like. "It's not nice to basically go in, sample something, and then buy it from another retailer!" But no. It's like stealing. XD

As someone who works in a small-time optical retailer, I have to disagree with what you're saying. If, as a potential buyer you walk in, ask for the assistance of the sales staff in choosing your frames, asking about various options that can come with the glasses, transitions, anti-reflective, etc., and then walk out, after having had taken up their time, it's essentially "stealing" their time and knowledge.

Also, purchasing glasses on-line and than making a professional, who did go to school or spent money on an apprenticeship program and gets paid by the company that you didn't purchase from, adjust them because "Te he! They do it for free" makes me glad that my company does charge for glasses that weren't purchased at our store.

I understand the desire to save money, I like to do the same myself, but the internet is not the salvation that these articles want to make it seem. You may be saving money on certain things, but can you be certain that you have the correct prescription in these glasses? Can you be sure that you actually got a real pair of designer frames that these places can sell for under the actual cost of the frame to the retailers themselves? Just remember, you very well can get what you pay for.

How funny, I didn't know you were literally in this circumstance!

To clarify, I absolutely do not mean if you monopolize a salesperson. That's definitely wasting someone's time and their employer's money if you know you don't plan to buy anything there. I'm thinking more generically: if I go into a store to try on clothes, and I don't bother anyone, and I leave with a list of things to comparison shop for online, or an idea of what I want, that's not stealing. But either way, I'm not stealing their light, climate control, and cleanliness. Those are just things that they need to maintain in order to not go out of business.

Although frankly, if I go into a car dealership, where the cars are all ridiculously overpriced, and they know that no one buys it for their sticker price, they should expect to waste employee time catering to me in the hopes that they'll be able to extort me instead of me leaving again to shop around. And as much as I don't want to demean your industry, the prices for eyeglasses are extortion the same way. $300 for a new pair of glasses?

I was warned not to listen to anti-net-shopping lectures, lol. There are some reputable sources online that have been vouched for. But frankly, considering my last bill, even if they mess up my order and I have to go somewhere else, I can afford the mix-up like five times without losing anything but my patience. XD

For my part, the only thing that bothers me with retail is if, after I've helped you locate and examine something, you say to me that you're going to go to X and buy it because it's omgz cheaper there. Hey, you have no obligation to buy something at my store if it's cheaper elsewhere; god knows there are some things that I won't buy where I work because the prices are ridiculous, but I hate it when people tell me and are all :D :D :D about it. (There was also an article on MSN about how my company was definitely going to close and we've been getting tons of people saying, "well, I've always hated your policies, and soon I won't have to deal with them, haha." Thanks a lot for laughing about my possibly being unemployed, jerkass.)

...those people are dicks. XD I agree with you completely. It's your right to leave if you're not getting the deal you want, but you don't need to be a bitch about it unless you got shitty service or something.

I'm sorry to hear your store is going under. :| We can cry and be unemployed together.

Lordee. To quote the bard, What fools these mortals be! The concept of comparison shopping is at least as old as shopping, and just because one of the shops is on the Intarwebs changes exactly NOTHING. If a retailer can't meet my needs, then why should I waste my money there?

Though I admit that I generally do it the opposite way: I do my browsing online and then go to the store in question. But I do this because 1) shipping usually makes the price more or less equal, and 2) I am too impatient to wait for shipping unless I CAN'T get it any other way.

Though I've never tried to buy glasses that way. I'll have to consider it, when next I can afford to go to the eye doctor!

Retail outrage! The small business life

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